Six reasons why Edinburgh trams project 'failed'

Retired engineer John Carson who ran for Edinburgh Council election on an anti-tram platform praises the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry for the 'high legel of diligence and expert knowledge' - and offers his reasons as to why the project was so fraught

John Carson, the influential civil engineer who in 2011 ran for election to Edinburgh Council on an anti-tram platform has praised the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry for the "high level of diligence and expert knowledge".

He made the remarks following the conclusion of the key witnesses to the multi-million pound debacle, which put significant new information in the public domain.

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Speaking to insider.co.uk he offered the six top reasons revealed by the Trams Inquiry as to why the project failed.

Carson who himself gave evidence to the Inquiry is a specialist in major infrastructure projects, best known for overseeing the construction of the Skye Bridge in his role as promoter and managing director of the consortium, praised the Tram Inquiry's chairman Lord Hardie and his team of lawyers for their "first class job" of eliciting answers from the inquiry’s “Core Participants”.

He added that their evidence included "clear examples of major malfeasance", most notably Edinburgh Council's lawyer Andrew Fitchie of DLA Piper who admitted under questioning to "knowingly providing false information to [Edinburgh] Council", which the enquiry’s lawyer paraphrased as "fraud".

As well as the Scottish Government's decision to withdraw its agency Transport Scotland from imposing strict controls on the spending of the £500m grant to the troubled project, the focus of the enquiry's conclusions, pending further oral submissions by core participants this May, is likely to be on the manner in which the progress of the project was represented in positive terms to Councillors, despite delays and contractual disputes with the building consortium BCS (Bilfinger Berger CAF Siemens)

John Carson's six reasons for 'failure' of Edinburgh Tram project

Excessive political will

The Edinburgh Tram Project was born out of a "political will" or a strong belief by the City authorities and other political interests that Edinburgh's capital should have a tram system, but the clarity of the desired outcome was not matched in its crucial early stages with an equally clear vision of how this “will” would be made manifest.

Inadequate staffing

The enquiry has focused strongly on the qualifications of key personnel.

It became clear that the specialists capable of leading and running a complex project of this magnitude on behalf of the public sector were unwilling to do so because of decision made at an early stage to link the service diversions to the track laying and for CEC to manage the interface risk.

Those who did want to took the job for all the wrong reasons and received large bonus payments even as the project was clearly failing.

Flaws in the Scottish Parliamentary Bill Process

Objectors were permitted to give evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Private Bill Committee when it considered the Edinburgh Tram (Line One) Bill in 2004.

Several contributors foretold the disaster that would eventually unfold, though at the time their evidence was largely ignored. It included what turned out to be a comprehensive summary of the issues that should be addressed if the failure of the project were to be avoided.

Edinburgh Tram arms length contracts

The decision to establish an arm’s length company TIE to manage the project was fundamentally flawed. Edinburgh Council appeared to believe that by distancing themselves in this way they it was distancing itself from the risk, but the decision came back to haunt them. In the end the Council's Chief executive agreeing to pay the contractors an extra £130m of rate payer's money in an attempt to revitalise the project, though without any clear explanation of how that figure was agreed.

Integrity issues

Several witness sessions exposed the fact that the openness and transparency of City of Edinburgh officials was questionable. The reports that were submitted to elected members did not reflect the true position for fear that they might cancel the project. Tie's repeated communications to the media that the project was "on time and on budget" until late in the process were clearly shown to be false.

Lack of Scottish Government support

The Scottish Government, represented by its specialist arm Transport Scotland were ultimately part of the problem, not the solution.

Although TS was initially tasked with monitoring the disbursement of funds against agreed "milestones", the Scottish Government, which opposed the project, withdrew them to a peripheral involvement in the project, effectively letting City of Edinburgh Council stew in its own juice.

But once the scale of the disaster became known, John Swinney's bruising evidence session revealed the extent of his attempts to twist arms, presumably in an attempt to rescue the ailing project and with it Scotland's reputation for competent delivery of major projects.

"The inquiry’s probing means the genie is out of the bottle," Carson said. "The key participants might have thought they could dump millions of highly technical documents on the Inquiry and simply overwhelm them with the weight of material, but this did not happen.

"The lawyers have had excellent financial and engineering advice about how these projects should be run and what Lord Hardie has unearthed cannot be quietly reburied. The material given in evidence by the core participants is detailed, comprehensive and certainly worthy of further action."

Other leading figures that made uncomfortable admissions under close questioning by the Inquiry's Lawyers during the hearings included former finance minister John Swinney, Edinburgh City Council Chief Executive Dame Sue Bruce, her predecessor Tom Aitchison and Finance Director Donald McGougan.

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Carson said that the Edinburgh Tram Project was one of the worst managed projects he had seen in a 40-year career spent delivering major rail projects across Europe. He said that the evidence-gathering part of the Trams Inquiry, which is expected to report later this year, had isolated the main causes of one of Scotland’s worst-ever infrastructure cock-ups.